Robert Stein (1950)

Robert Stein (1972)

Robert Stein (2000s)

About Me

editor, publisher, media critic and journalism teacher,
is a former Chairman of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and author of “Media Power: Who Is Shaping Your Picture of the World?” Before the war in Iraq, he wrote in The New York Times: “I see a generation gap in the debate over going to war in Iraq. Those of us who fought in World War II know there was no instant or easy glory in being part of 'The Greatest Generation,' just as we knew in the 1990s that stock-market booms don’t last forever.
We don’t have all the answers, but we want to spare our children and grandchildren from being slaughtered by politicians with a video-game mentality."
This is not meant to extol geezer wisdom but suggest that, even in our age of 24/7 hot flashes, something can be said for perspective.
The Web is a wide space for spreading news, but it can also be a deep well of collective memory to help us understand today’s world. In olden days, tribes kept village elders around to remind them with which foot to begin the ritual dance. Start the music.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Empty Oval Office

If Mitt Romney, who declares his candidacy today, actually gets the Republican nomination, out of default or disgust with the rest of the field, Americans will have the chance to reprise 1976 when they, in effect, voted to leave the White House unoccupied by electing Jimmy Carter to take a breather from Watergate and its aftereffects.

Still in shock from Nixon and offended by Gerald Ford’s pardon of him, Americans turned to a former governor whose chief appeal was “I will never lie to you,” but who was otherwise clueless about dealing with a failing economy and a dispirited nation.

What Romney’s candidacy would offer next year is not Hope but Respite. For those who blame Obama for everything but the weather, an Empty Suit in the Oval Office would offer transitory relief from hate and rage but little else, as Carter proved by responding to higher oil prices and inflation with a fireside chat wearing a sweater and complaining about a “national malaise.”

With Sarah Palin and Donald Trump sharing bad pizza to make Jon Stewart apoplectic and Herman Cain, who had marketed bad pizza, rising in the polls, traditional Republicans and Independents might be willing to settle for Mitt’s white-bread persona.

But before that can appeal to Tea Partygoers, it will have to be toasted and slathered with fiery spices and sweets. Romney, who has shown himself willing to stock his cupboard with anything that works, will certainly give it a try but even he might gag on what it would take to win them over.

Bon appetit!

Update: The Republican reality quotient is reflected in Romney’s willingness to admit in New Hampshire that global warming actually exists, while Palin is in his home state, babbling about how Paul Revere “warned the British.” Empty Suit is looking better every day.